Stalag and Oflag POW Prisoner of War Camps

A Stalag was the term used
during the First and Second World War for prisoner-of-war camps in
Germany. The word Stalag is an abbreviation of the German word: Stammlager.
At each Stalag the German Army set up sub-camps called Arbeitskommando
to hold prisoners in the vicinity of specific work locations. These kommandos
ranged in size from a handful of POWs working on a farm to several hundred
prisoners working in coalmines or quarries. An Oflag - from the
German word: Offizierslager -
was a prisoner of war camp for officers only. In accordance with the
requirements of the Third Geneva Convention, officers held prisoner at
Oflags were not required to work

Probably the best known of these Prisoner of War camps is Stalag Luft
III, a massive camp near Sagan, Silesia, Germany (now Żagań,
Lubuskie, Poland). This camp was the site of spectacular escape attempt
(later filmed as: The Great Escape). On March 24, 1944, 76 Allied
prisoners escaped through a 110 m long tunnel. 73 were
recaptured within two weeks. 50 of them were executed by order of Hitler.
Other notable camps include the notorious Oflag IV-C, the Colditz
Castle prisoner-of-war camp for "incorrigible" Allied officers
who had repeatedly escaped from other camps; Stalag II-B just outside Hammerstein in
Pomerania (now Czarne, Pomorskie, Poland), where treatment of prisoners
was considered worse than at any other camp in Germany established for
American POW; Stalag III-C, where up to 12,000 Soviet prisoners
were killed or starved to death, near Küstrin,
Brandenburg, Germany (now Kostrzyn nad Odrą,Lubuskie, Poland); and Oflag II-C, a Prisoner-of-War camp comprising of up to
5,000 Polish officers and orderlies, in Woldenburg,
Ostbrandenburg / Neumark, Germany (now
Dobiegniew, Lubusz,
Poland).

This website focuses on the Oflag and Stalag POW camps,
which were located in the east of Germany during the Second World War, but
since the redrawing of the borders of Germany in 1945, are now mostly located in
Poland. It will include personal accounts of
everyday life for a prisoner of war in German Stalag and Oflag camps. Below is a list of the Prisoner of War camps, which this site will
cover in detail. Follow the links to find information on these individual Oflags and
Stalags.